


Trouble

by liamthebastard



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con References, dark!Sherlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-26
Updated: 2013-03-19
Packaged: 2017-12-03 16:19:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/700209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liamthebastard/pseuds/liamthebastard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>I think that the worst part of it all wasn't losing him. It was losing me.</em>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_I think--I think when it's all over, it just comes back in flashes, you know? It's like a kaleidoscope of memories. It just all comes back. But he never does. I think part of me knew the second I saw him that this would happen. It's not really anything he said or anything he did, it was the feeling that came along with it. And the crazy thing is I don't know if I'm ever gonna feel that way again. But I don't know if I should. ._

_I knew his world moved too fast and burned too bright. But I just thought, how can the devil be pulling you toward someone who looks so much like an angel when he smiles at you? Maybe he knew that when he saw me. I guess I just lost my balance. ._

_I think that the worst part of it all wasn't losing him. It was losing me._

I wasn’t exactly innocent when he met me. I was Three-Continents Watson, and though I’d fallen on hard times, I still maintained some of my luster. Mike Stamford knew I could hold my own, and I think that’s part of why he introduced the two of us. He knew that while Sherlock went off on a tangent or a was prancing around all peacockish and ridiculous, that I would still be standing there, steady and unflappable, ready to reel him in before he flew too high. But then I saw those heights, and oh, how I wanted them. I wanted to scrape the clouds along with him, to fly with him as he spiraled higher and higher. 

It was the one thing Mike hadn’t counted on- that instead of limiting his addiction, I would find myself addicted too. Perhaps even more than Sherlock was. 

Really, though, I wasn’t addicted as much to the flying. I was addicted to the man. At first I didn’t want to admit it, but I knew he didn’t care at all what I, or anyone else, thought. He had his own scintillating mind to have for company. He kept me on for entertainment, I suppose. 

He’d do this thing, this strange thing; he called it his Mind Palace. The man’s body could be sitting right next to me, or be sprawled upside down on the couch, or perched like a bird in the chair, but the actual _man_ , that brilliant brain of his, would be miles and miles away. And honestly, I should’ve seen it coming, and it’s all on me for discounting my instincts, something a soldier should know better than to do.

One time he walked into my room after I’d woken from a nightmare. Now, any other time, if a man saw me with tears still wet on my face, I’d have punched him as a distraction and gotten away clean. But this time, I couldn’t bring myself to do anything but blink at him. And he blinked back. And then he left, closing the door courteously behind him. 

No apologies, not even the sort that people spout out when they really don’t mean it. Sherlock Holmes never apologised. Not for leaving body parts in the refrigerator, not for making new widows hysterical, and certainly not for failing to comfort his screwed-up flatmate. 

Not even when he was the reason you were having nightmares.

You see, after the whole… Moriarty debacle, my dreams of the war had stopped, and been replaced by dreams of drowning, of being covered in water and wrapped in the stench of chlorine until it smothered me. And I knew he knew, and he knew that I knew he knew. And still, he feigned ignorance. Too much sentiment for him to be comfortable talking about it.

And if, after his Fall, my nightmares left behind the reek of chlorine and moved on to the cold smell of rain and the sound of a body hitting pavement, well, he wasn’t around to know, was he? I tried to move forward, leave him behind, even as people around me saw who I was and hissed that Sherlock had been nothing but a fraud, a fake, and all-around lout. Not that he wasn’t an all-around lout, but he was _my_ all-around lout, and I was the only one who got to harangue him for it. 

Of course, he wasn’t around to hear the times I got kicked out of the pub for punching a patron who’d made a wrong comment about him. He wasn’t there for the times Greg had to bail me out, or pull some strings to get me out of trouble. And even Greg, after some time had passed, gently mentioned that perhaps Sherlock hadn’t been all he’d seemed. 

That was when I stopped going round the Yard. And when I moved. Two years since his death and I was in a new flat. But still he haunted me, his every movement forever burned into my mind. 

He showed me the most- incredible places and things. Took me to brand new vistas, showed me a world I never imagined had sat just below the surface of the one I knew so well. Opened my eyes and made me see, really _see_. I took in so much more of the world, even the things he didn’t think were important. I saw them so he wouldn’t have to, so he could tune it out and focus on the important things. 

And I couldn’t make it stop.

Sherlock had always complained that his mind was too loud, was too busy, saw too much, and he couldn’t get it to shut down. I’d never fully understood what he’d meant. Now I was painfully aware of it. 

I’d be walking down the street, and people’s life stories would paint themselves before my eyes. I could see them, maybe not as accurately as Sherlock could, but certainly close enough to give me a general idea of their person. And with each deduction, I’d hear his voice, hissing in my ear as the stories appeared. It was loud, maddening, and it never went away. 

I still couldn’t go near Angelo’s, or any take-out place in that part of the city, because I’d spend the time silently looking for evidence of him in the area. And I’d find it, everywhere, but I’m never sure if it was real evidence or just my mind providing what I wanted. It could’ve gone either way, in all honesty. But more likely than not, it was imagined. Sherlock… he was many things, but he was rarely cruel. I’d only seen that cruelty once, when Sherlock had lashed out at the man who threatened Mrs. Hudson. But pretending to be dead- that was a cruelty even Sherlock wouldn’t inflict on someone. 

Because he knew how much I loved him, even before I did, because the man knew everything. And though he didn’t feel an iota of love towards me, or anyone excepting himself for that matter, he wouldn’t intentionally force me to suffer. Not like this. 

In losing him, I’ve lost the best part of myself.

_I don't know if you know who you are until you lose who you are._


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Many people assume that when John Watson took center stage in Sherlock’s life; it was the doctor who was swept away.

_**And the saddest fear comes creeping in.** _

Many people assume that when John Watson took center stage in Sherlock’s life; it was the doctor who was swept away. And he was, to be sure. But what most don’t know is that Sherlock was swept away as well. When he first looked at the seemingly average man, his heart stopped; because he could tell in a glance that this was no ordinary human. John was… Special… and pure in a way; a way that made Sherlock want to steady his trembling hands. Fix his limping leg. Cure his depression, his PTSD. Sherlock wanted him in perfect health. Because there was nothing more satisfying than building someone up, making them dependent on you… and then tearing them down again, taking away the drug and watching the withdrawal.

There’s a lot more to their life than most would have you believe.  
They’re the crime-fighting duo.  
Best friends.  
The perfect couple.  
But no one knows about the night that Sherlock got John drunk enough to convince him to try some of the addict’s best supply.  
John was on edge for days and then berated himself for trusting the wannabe scientist with alcohol.

No one knew about the time that John tried to say no, but Sherlock wouldn’t have it.  
The sociopath tied him up and held him down and bit back the screams with his own tongue, roughly biting his lips.  
He walked with a limp, decidedly not psychosomatic, for days, and Sherlock noticed the blood stains in the shower.  
John said it was fine.  
He could get fixated on things easily.  
It wasn’t the genius’s fault that his brain refused to function like a normal person’s sometimes.

After that experiment Sherlock noticed a few things.  
John was more eager to please Sherlock.  
In any way possible.  
More sex, more drugs, more crimes, and less complaining, he did everything he could to make Sherlock happy.  
But underneath that Sherlock also noticed the flinches.  
Sherlock would raise his voice, or come home unexpectedly and John would physically recoil.  
He was afraid.  
John Watson was afraid of Sherlock Holmes and the great detective knew it.

Moriarty was just in time, as far as Sherlock was concerned.  
John was codependent.  
John was afraid. John was in love.  
It all got so frightfully boring.  
So he let himself get sucked into it.  
Into the game.  
Moriarty became what John had been.  
Practically overnight.  
Sherlock would like to think that it was the closest he had ever come to loving someone.  
So he threw himself in with a passion, made John listen to his suicide note, and jumped.  
It was perfect.

_**That he never loved me, or her, or anyone, or anything.** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is actually a song fic, based off the music video for Taylor Swift's _Trouble_  
>  I really don't like most of her stuff, but I was really struck by this music video and so I showed it to by girlfriend, Vi, and we decided to write two fanfics inspired by this song and she went running with John's POV so fast, I couldn't catch her and left me with Sherlock's POV and I think we both took _very_ different views on it, but I rather like the results.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so technically this is a songfic. Inspired by the music video for I Knew You Were Trouble by Taylor Swift. The video is surprisingly good, and when my girlfriend showed it to me, we decided to write a johnlock fic for it. I claimed John's perspective, and she took Sherlock's. I'll post her half (perhaps) later on.
> 
> Oh and the bits at the beginning and end all in italics are the dialogue from that video.


End file.
